Contraband

The most dangerous commodity of all... Joe "Skid" Marak, aka the pilot, is a compulsive smuggler.  For him, borders are an outrage to freedom.  He lives with his pet rat in the abandoned spire of Manhattan's TransCom Building.  His friends are outcasts in a world ripped by plague and repression.  The pilot knows his days are numbered.  On his ECM-pak, he watches helplessly as his freetrading comrades vanish from the victims of a mysterious force known only as "Bokon Taylay." The brother of his Rollerblading, go-go-dancing girlfriend is Taylay's latest victim.  All that is left behind is a smuggled message telling the pilot he must locate the one man who can break Taylay's code, the legendary author of the Smuggler's Bible--a man who may not even exist.  It's a risk worth taking.  Because to the pilot, there's only one contraband more valuable than life--freedom. From the Paperback edition.